Devil's Bedsted East - 11,865 Feet

With Dylan back in the fold (we picked him up two weeks ago) it was time to get out and climb a mountain.  The question was where.  With three wildfires raging across Idaho it would be hit and miss trying to find a place with minimal smoke.

After talking it over some, we decided to take our chances and head east of Hailey to Devil's Bedsted East (DBE) in the Pioneers.  In reading some of the past trip reports it sounded like we would be in for a bit of scrambling.  We were not disappointed.

When John, Mariel and I climbed Abel Peak the week before Rainier, DBE was front and center during the drive in.  Rather than taking the approach hike from other's trip reports we opted for a shorter route from the Kane Lake trail head.

We arrived at the trail head a little before 9AM - it was 50 degrees and no smoke!  After 20 minutes of hiking in the trial we took a sharp left and headed up a steep scree filled couloir.
 

Scree filled couloir

The scree wasn't too bad as we headed up, but when we got close to the top and the route steepened we headed to the right and scrambled on some relatively solid rock.

Once on top we found out that we could either continue scrambling up the west ridge or drop down a few hundred feet and tackle the north face.  I wanted to continue with the ridge, but the boy talked me out of it.  So down we went...
 

We dropped down just to the right of the white slide area

It actually was a fun route.  Once we crossed the cirque we climbed straight up through a section of moss covered rocks before transitioning to steeper rock.

Heading up

What a blast!  Constant hands and feet gripping the rock interspersed with route finding decisions.  This was why people said this was one of Idaho's best climbs.  As we got closer to the summit the rock became steeper until we both popped up over the summit ridge.

Scrambling up the last 30 feet

With little smoke in the air the views weren't too bad.
 

Mystery Peak

Abel Peak

As we were eating lunch and snapping pictures a small band of clouds quickly formed.  You could see the rain falling from these clouds several miles away so we quickly packed up and took our last pictures.

Summit shot (with rain jackets!)

As we took our first steps across the summit ridge to head down an extremely loud thunder boomer let loose!  I have to use the adjective 'extremely' since we were standing on top of a mountain at 11,800 feet with nothing to protect.  That really got the adrenaline flowing! We quickly scampered down a hundred feet or so as another boomer went off.  We didn't see any lightning nor feel the electricity but the sound was enough. 

Dylan scampering for safety

As we descended another hundred feet the rain and hail started.  We hunkered down for 5 minutes or so as the clouds passed over us and the rain stopped.  After the rain we were treated to this spectacular rainbow stretching across the valley.

We slipped our way down the rocks until the sun dried everything out making the descent a bit easier.

Trip Stats:
Length - ~5 miles
Elevation - 4300 feet
Time to summit - 4 hours
Car to car time - 7 hours